Grant enables marine-energy kite to be trialled at sea

Minesto UK is receiving a grant of up to £350,000 from the Carbon Trust to deploy the first seagoing prototype of its Deep Green sea kite technology.

The trial will see a one-tenth-size version of the Deep Green device put through tests off the coast of Northern Ireland.

Deep Green resembles an underwater kite and converts energy from tidal stream flows. The kite assembly, consisting of a wing and turbine, is attached by a tether to a fixed point on the ocean bed.

It manoeuvres in a figure-of-eight formation, steered by a rudder, allowing it to accelerate the speed of the water entering the turbine by up to 10 times.

The Carbon Trust research and development grant will support Minesto in gaining site permits for installations, testing survivability in a real-sea environment and also develop and verify a model for the cost of energy generated by the device.

If trials are successful, Minesto plans to deploy enough devices around the UK’s coastline to generate up to 530GWh per year by 2020.